A slap heard around the world. A criminal rampage through paradise. And one actor who took method
acting way too far. What more jaw-dropping things could fans of beloved actors do?
Will Smith made the wrong kind of history at the 94th Academy Awards. When Chris Rock made a joke
about Jada Pinkett Smith, Will Smith walked on stage during his monologue and slapped him across
the face. In the immediate aftermath many thought the incident was a pre-arranged gag, but after
Smith yelled profanities twice from his seat, it became clear there was nothing staged about it.
While many fans supported Smith, others criticized him, a number of celebrities began to speak
out — particularly those in the comedy world, who were anything but sympathetic towards him.
"It was a most disturbing incident for sure. It was an assault."
When the smoke cleared, Smith was hit with a decade-long ban
from any and all Academy Awards events, including the Oscars.
But it isn't just in terms of awards that Will Smith is being punished. Since the slap,
development on a number of Smith projects has either been delayed or outright canceled.
For example, work on the planned fourth film of the Bad Boys franchise has been paused,
while Netflix's Bright 2 has been scrapped completely.
In February 2021, Gina Carano was fired from her signature role
of Cara Dune on The Mandalorian. In an Instagram post that has since been deleted,
Carano compared those who criticized her political views to being Nazis.
That was the final straw for Disney and Lucasfilm, who were reportedly already
incensed with Carano after two controversial November 2020 tweets.
One tweet from Carano implied that President Joe Biden had committed voter fraud, and the
other another mocked people wearing masks during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Carano has continued to double down on the same kind of social media posts that got her booted
from Star Wars. One such tweet, posted not long after the one-year anniversary of her firing,
peddled a conspiracy theory that the United States government orchestrated Russia's
invasion of Ukraine because it quote, "lost control of the COVID narrative."
While Carano continues to find work thanks to Ben Shapiro's production company,
it's probably safe to say that she won't be turning up in Star Wars anytime soon.
From a certain point of view, Mel Gibson seems to be the luckiest actor alive. In 2020,
he starred as the villain opposite Frank Grillo in Hulu's Boss Level, and he'll reportedly be
stepping into the late Richard Donner's shoes to both direct and star in Lethal Weapon 5.
Along with other upcoming projects, he landed a role for the upcoming John
Wick prequel series The Continental. And yet, Gibson's continuing career
seems to singlehandedly disprove the existence of so-called "cancel culture."
In 2006, Gibson was pulled over for alleged drunk driving and let loose an anti-Semitic rant on the
officers. The Oscar-winning director and actor was already persona non grata to many after depicting
the glee of Jewish characters over the death of Jesus in 2004's The Passion of the Christ.
Four years later, audio tapes leaked of threatening and racist statements
the actor made to ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva,
and in 2011 he pleaded no contest to domestic abuse charges against her.
Despite many former fans swearing off Gibson forever, the guy just keeps on getting work.
In 2018, a revival of the long-dormant sitcom Roseanne enjoyed unprecedented success,
with most of the original cast returning for a 10th season. The titular lead, Roseanne Barr,
hadn't been much of a presence on television ever since the series first closed up shop in 1997.
All she had to do to remain on top was avoid tweeting a racist joke about former
presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett, but apparently that was too much to ask.
"Thought the b---- was white! God damn it! I thought the b---- was white!"
In May 2018, the offending tweet ended Roseanne for good. Barr apologized to Jarrett,
tried blaming the tweet on "Ambien tweeting," and
eventually announced she was leaving Twitter. But it was too little, too late.
First, fellow actress and comic Wanda Sykes announced she would not return to her consulting
producer job on Roseanne, and soon afterward ABC fired Barr and canceled the show altogether. Later
that year, The Conners premiered minus Barr, with the revelation that her character had died of an
opioid overdose. In a guest column for THR, showrunner Bruce Heldford wrote that the decision
was made to kill her character off "to make her departure clearly permanent."
To some, it might seem like a surprise that it took the public so long to turn on Ezra Miller.
In April 2020, during a time when so much as a single poorly conceived tweet could end a career,
a video surfaced of what appeared to be Miller choking a woman and throwing her to the ground.
Yet somehow the usual "cancel culture" campaigns remained silent — as did Miller.
Fans had a harder time ignoring it when Miller was arrested in Hilo, Hawaii in March 2022.
They were charged with "disorderly conduct and harassment" after allegedly "yelling
obscenities" at patrons in a karaoke bar. They also allegedly grabbed a microphone out of a
woman's hand and "lunged at a [...] man playing darts." And things only got worse from there.
"A couple in Hilo have filed a temporary restraining order against Hollywood actor
Ezra Miller, after Miller allegedly barged into their bedroom."
Not long after Miller was released on bail, a couple that Miller was reportedly
staying with filed a restraining order against Miller, accusing them of threatening the couple
and stealing some of their belongings. Only a few weeks later, Miller was arrested yet again,
this time in Pāhoa, Hawaii. They had reportedly been asked to leave a party,
and in response allegedly threw a chair that struck a woman in the head.
Shortly after the first arrest, rumors began swirling that Warner Bros. were considering
kicking their Flash and Fantastic Beasts star to the curb. At the same time, the controversy
has had many fans calling for Miller to be replaced by Grant Gustin as the DCEU's Flash.
If that wasn’t enough, in June 2022, parents of an 18-year-old activist
sought out court intervention against Miller for grooming their daughter.
As Rolling Stone reported just a few weeks later, Miller was hosting a 25 year old mother
and her three young children at a secluded Vermont Farm where the children were found
with easy access to guns, bullets, and marijuana lying around the house.
In the late 2010s, Scarlett Johansson became the face of privileged celebrities
taking roles that should have gone to actors from other communities.
The first example was when she agreed to the lead role of the cybernetically enhanced Major
Mira Killian in 2017's Ghost in the Shell. The thing is, in the source material and the
anime adaptations, the character's name was Motoko Kusanagi. By accepting the role of a traditionally
Japanese character, Johansson joined the long and regretful tradition of Hollywood whitewashing.
She courted controversy the following year when she agreed to play a transgender man in Rub and
Tug. After critics argued that the role should go to a transgender man, Johansson issued a brief
statement to Bustle, referencing other actors who have played trans characters, that said:
"Tell them that they can be directed to Jeffrey Tambor,
Jared Leto, and Felicity Huffman's reps for comment."
Johansson later apologized for the statement and quit Rub and Tug, but with the controversy coming
so hard on the heels of Ghost in the Shell, it may be a while before people forget about this.
Jared Leto's Method acting already became somewhat legendary after behind-the-scenes stories surfaced
from the production of 2016's Suicide Squad, including reports of the actor apparently sending
a dead hog to the cast as a twisted present. But while the Suicide Squad stories were just weird,
something arguably more offensive happened on the set of the long-delayed Morbius.
In an April 2022 interview with Uproxx, Morbius director Daniel Espinosa confirmed
that Leto pretended to be disabled — like his character — in between takes. He used a
set of crutches to get himself to and from bathroom breaks, for example, until that
took too long and it was decided crew members would bring him back and forth in a wheelchair.
"And that was when I fell in love with vampires."
The story has done nothing to help Leto's reputation. Along with drawing out accusations
of ableism, the story prompted other actors to take indirect potshots at Leto. Though he
didn't mention Leto by name, while promoting Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore,
Mads Mikkelsen called method acting quote, "pretentious." Not long after, Jon Bernthal
voiced his opinion on method acting, saying he saw "no benefit" in taking it to such extremes.
In January 2019, former Empire star Jussie Smollett announced that he had been the victim
of a hate crime in January 2019. The actor claimed that two men attacked him, "poured
an unknown substance" on him, and put a noose around his neck in a racially motivated attack.
But by the following month, the Chicago PD had become convinced that the incident was staged.
It seemed that Smollett had hired the Nigerian brothers Olabinjo and Abimbola
Osundairo to stage the attack as a bid to negotiate a higher rate on Empire. Smollett
was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and filing a false police report.
As more and more evidence came out, the same fans and celebrities who initially showered
Smollett with support showed him nothing but disdain. Smollett's first trial was dismissed,
but he was still let go from Empire, and new charges were brought against him in 2020.
In late December 2021, Smollett was found guilty on five out of six charges of disorderly conduct.
The actor was ordered to spend 150 days in jail, spend 30 months on probation,
and pay a fine of $145,000. While he got off light, all things considered,
it's doubtful you'll be seeing his IMBb page getting any new additions any time soon.
Dave Chappelle caught flak for a while for making jokes considered transphobic,
but he took special aim at the subject in his 2021 Netflix special The Closer.
Among other things, the comic proudly called himself a "TERF" — a term for feminists who
don't consider trans women to be women. He also invoked his late friend Daphne Dorman,
a trans woman who died by suicide, in a way that many found offensive.
"And I don’t know what the trans community did for her but I don’t care, because I feel like
she wasn’t their tribe, she was mine. She was a comedian in her soul."
After the special aired, Aja Romano wrote for Vox that:
"Chappelle makes it clear that he needs Dorman to exist on his terms,
not hers — not as a trans woman with autonomy, but as a trans woman who’s
proven she deserves autonomy by way of having a chill, laid-back sense of humor."
In other words, Chappelle's acceptance of Dorman as a trans woman was conditional.
The same month The Closer began streaming on Netflix, a group of Netflix employees
staged a walkout, protesting both Chappelle's special on the platform and what they saw as
an unhealthy work environment. Chappelle will apparently host and produce still more comedy
specials for Netflix in the future, but, to many fans, the comic died on stage in 2021.
What do you remember most from Terminator Salvation? Well,
if you were paying any attention to entertainment news in 2009, then it's
probably the infamous audio recording that leaked a few months before the film's release.
That year, TMZ posted a recording of Christian Bale — who played John
Connor in the film — ranting for just under four minutes at director of photography Shane Hurlbut.
Dropping more F-bombs than even SkyNet could coordinate, Bale accused Hurlbut of distracting
him during filming by walking aimlessly around the set. You can hear Hurlbut apologizing
throughout the recording and other crew members trying to calm Bale down, but to no avail.
Bale apologized for the rant after the audio surfaced and ensured fans that he
and Hurlbut worked out their differences before the day was through. Still,
Bale has never been able to completely shake the reputation he earned when his tirade went public.
In the wake of Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek's passing,
the question of who could succeed him proved much more controversial than most anticipated.
Sitcom actor Mayim Bialik was chosen to share co-hosting duties with former Jeopardy! champ
Ken Jennings, but, in the case of Bialik, a controversial past followed her to the show.
In 2017, Bialik had written what proved to be an extremely divisive op-ed in The New York Times
about Harvey Weinstein. She suggested that, like her, women should "dress modestly" and
not "act flirtatiously" — something many took as victim-shaming. Bialik has also expressed fringe
views about vaccinations for years, although she says she's vaccinated against COVID-19.
As well as these larger issues, Jeopardy! fans continued to yell bloody murder at much
smaller "offenses" from Bialik while hosting the
show. The offenses she’s gathered while hosting the game show include using the
term "Single Jeopardy," and wearing the same orange knit blazer more than once.
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